Embedded Files
2024
2024
December 18, 2024 - Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays!
December 18, 2024 - Season's Greetings and Happy Holidays!
As the year draws to a close, it’s the perfect time to celebrate the dedicated efforts and achievements of the past year and look forward to what lies ahead with excitement and hope.
2024 has been professionally rewarding in many ways. I am proud to have launched this website, which showcases my journey and accomplishments in aquatic microbial ecology. Among the highlights of the year was seeing my name featured at the European Coral Reef Symposium 2024. Additionally, I had the honor of publishing 4 scientific papers in international journals, which you can find here. This year, my work has been cited over 40 times, a milestone that I am happy to see exceed last year's impact. I am also excited about the launch of my outreach series : Mud-Cake Stories, which delves into the fascinating ecosystem services provided by mudflats. Presented in an accessible and engaging way, this series continues to be published weekly on LinkedIn until January 7, 2025. You can explore the series on this website here, and feel free to connect with me on my LinkedIn profile (link).
2025 is shaping up to be just as exciting. Several publications are already in progress, and I look forward to sharing them with you once they are accepted. I am hopeful to present parts of this work at an international conference in the coming year. Outreach activities will continue, with new and exciting projects already underway. Additionally, next year will mark the conclusion of my 3-year involvement in the SEARCHLIGHT project (link), which has supported my research since 2022. This will also mark the beginning of a new chapter in my career, as I am currently exploring several promising opportunities for my next project. Stay tuned !
To all of you who share my passion for aquatic ecosystems and the fascinating microbial communities that thrive within them, I wish you a wonderful holiday season and a happy and successful 2025. May the coming year bring fruitful collaborations, inspiring discoveries, and meaningful progress in our collective efforts to better understand and protect the environment. Thank you for your support and curiosity. I look forward to continuing to explore the wonders of the microbial aquatic world together !
November 1, 2024 - Welcome to a delicious new way to understand the value of our ecosystems ! 🌍✨
November 1, 2024 - Welcome to a delicious new way to understand the value of our ecosystems ! 🌍✨
Thanks to the warm reception our tiny mud-cakes 🧁 have received, I’m excited to introduce a new series aimed at showcasing valuable concepts and insights related to my scientific work on mudflats.
Welcome to the "Mud-Cake Stories: One process, many services", a series that will explore the remarkable ecosystem services provided by mudflats, presented in an accessible and engaging way.
Join me in diving into these fascinating micro-worlds, where each biological process reveals an unexpected benefit! 🌍✨
Each week, from November 2024 to January 2025, a new story was shared every Tuesday at 8:00 AM UTC on LinkedIn (connect) and in the dedicated outreach section of this website. Although the Mud-Cake Stories 🧁✨ series is now complete, all the stories remain available for you to explore.
October 21, 2024 - Prom night for our mud-cakes !
October 21, 2024 - Prom night for our mud-cakes !
Last friday, a new batch of our now-famous mud-cakes, studied at the PHYCOLAB, Universidade de Aveiro, has just completed a round of experiments under some very special conditions… a real qualitative prom night with two rooms—two vibes for our favorite diatoms !
The results are fascinating and will deepen our knowledge and understanding of benthic diatom motility in response to their light environment. The goals of the SEARCHLIGHT project, funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), are proving to be even more exciting than expected. I can't wait to share it all with you soon! However, for now, these discoveries have to remain under scientific wraps until their publication.
In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about diatom behavior studied within the SEARCHLIGHT project, check out the project’s publication released this year in Microbial Ecology [here], and stay tuned to follow our progress and the scientific adventures of our mud-cakes !
October 1, 2024 - Today, we’re making mud-cakes!
October 1, 2024 - Today, we’re making mud-cakes!
Just a stone’s throw from the famous Vista Alegre factory, the marshes and intertidal zones of the Ria de Aveiro (Portugal) are teeming with life. It’s in these biodiversity-rich areas that our lab located at the Universidade de Aveiro, regularly collect muddy sediment samples to better understand microphytobenthos, a biofilm mainly composed of photosynthetic microorganisms, especially diatoms, that play essential roles in maintaining the health and resilience of benthic ecosystems.
These samples are currently being used in the SEARCHLIGHT project (funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia - FCT), which focuses on studying the motility of benthic pennate diatoms in response to light, a unique trait among diatoms that allow them to optimize their photosynthetic efficiency and might explain their fast diversification and evolutionary success.
What about the mud-cakes? The freshly collected and homogenized mud is transferred into well plates using a syringe, thus creating our mud-cakes for the day! After the biofilm reconstruction, these samples will be used to study the mechanisms linking light detection to the activation of diatom motility.
Curious to know more? Stay tuned and follow our progress!
July 17, 2024 - Newly Published Research Article (Science of the Total Environment)
July 17, 2024 - Newly Published Research Article (Science of the Total Environment)
I am pleased to announce the publication of our latest research article titled "Impact of water level management on organic carbon availability and nitrogen transformations in wetland sediments" in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
This paper presents part of the results we obtained during the FEREE project (see details).
Description: The research presented in this paper investigates the effects of water level management through water retention on benthic carbon and nitrogen fluxes in a wetland of the Seine estuary. By examining both intermittent and permanent immersion periods, we aim to provide valuable insights into how different water management strategies influence crucial ecological functions of wetland ecosystems.
Findings: The key findings include significantly higher nitrate reduction rates during permanent immersion due to increased input of organic matter, highlighting the importance of strategic water level management in wetlands to sustain their crucial ecological functions and enhance ecosystem services, especially during summer.
Please feel free to access the paper for free during the next 50 days (up to Sept. 5th) by using the following link: Access the paper
June 23, 2024 - Internship opportunity for 2024/25 school year.
June 23, 2024 - Internship opportunity for 2024/25 school year.
I am pleased to announce the opportunity for a BSc or MSc student to undertake an internship at our lab (PHYCOLAB) for the next academic year (2024/2025), under my supervision and with J. Serôdio as co-supervisor. We welcome interested students to contact us at their earliest convenience to discuss the specific topic of the internship. The topic will be within the following framework and tailored to the student's interests and academic level.
Title: Inter-specific study of the motility of benthic diatoms based on light characteristics
Description: The project engages in research on the ecology and biology of essential marine microorganisms. We propose studying the motility and physiology of benthic diatoms based on light characteristics (e.g., color, intensity). Research will be conducted at the scale of natural communities and monospecific cultures, combining lab work and field trips. This internship will enable the student to develop advanced skills in chlorophyll fluorescence technology at the single-cell scale.
Remarks: The ability of the student to speak in English will be appreciated
Contact: jerome.morelle@ua.pt
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse